


Through a Mirror, Darkly

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, For like one more week, Gen, One Shot, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Volume 7 (RWBY), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22318285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: The final days of the life of the Winter Maiden; a cup of tea with the woman who is to succeed her.
Relationships: Fria & Winter Schnee, Weiss Schnee & Winter Schnee
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Through a Mirror, Darkly

**Author's Note:**

> For the benefit of any future readers, this was written and published on January 19, 2020, immediately after the premiere of V7E11 “[Gravity](https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Gravity)”. This isn’t really a ‘prediction’ _per se_ , merely an exploration of one possible narrative route.

* * *

Fria set her cup down on its saucer, savoring the last traces of tea on her tongue. It reminded her of home, which was a bittersweetness that had nothing to do with the taste. She’s spent so many years in distant kingdoms, fighting for foreign lands, hunting Grimm in the remotest corners of Remnant. Months, then years, then decades had passed. She’d never been able to find the tea, not in any market or store, and over time she’d forgotten the taste of it, the smell, even the very name.

And now, in these final days of her life, she could have as much of it as she ever desired. This hospice-cum-prison had spared no expense when it came to the little comforts, even requests for tea from a town not found on any map.

Destiny was strange like that.

“Who is she?” Fria asked, adjusting the blanket around herself.

Winter Schnee paused mid-sentence, her own teacup hovering halfway to her lips. “Who?” she asked in reply, her voice cooling with her tea.

Fria smiled softly, and inclined her head by degrees, towards the observation room hidden behind mirrored glass. “The woman watching us right now.”

“How do you-” Winter tensed, moving to stand, but Fria stilled her with a small wave of her hand. 

“I can’t _see her_ , love, don’t worry,” Fria reassured her, pausing for a moment while Winter settled back into her seat. “But I have something of a sixth sense for knowing when I’m being watched. Couldn’t have lasted as long as I did without it.”

Fria was immediately seized by a coughing fit, as if her body needed to remind her of her own mortality. Winter winced, and poured another cup of tea, handing it to Fria once her coughs had subsided. Fria thanked her with a nod, delicately sipping her third cup of the day.

Winter let out a small sigh. “She’s my sister. Weiss.”

“Sister, eh?” Fria croaked, grinning a little. “Younger, older?”

“Younger. The middle child of the family.” Winter took a sip. “She was just licensed as a Huntress, in fact.”

“Oh, is that so?” Fria replied, still smiling. “You must be very proud of her.”

“I am,” Winter said, without thought or hesitation.

But her posture shifted slightly, and Fria had spent enough time around her heiress-apparent to understand her body language.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Fria asked, rhetorically. “Knowing that your little sister is going to be putting herself in danger. There’s some part of you that want to stop her, to tell her to stay back, to let _you_ do the fighting.”

Winter said nothing, but her eyes were downcast, and a somber expression on her face.

“I’m afraid it never gets easier,” Fria continued, still sipping her tea. “Not for people like us. You can only do everything you can for her, and pray that it’s enough.”

Fria tried to take a gulp of her tea, but she’d been having trouble swallowing for weeks, and ended up coughing again. Winter’s hands were around hers in a heartbeat, trying to keep her from spilling the half-full teacup over herself.

The coughs again subsided, and Fria found herself unusually close to Winter Schnee, staring into those ice blue eyes. “But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because of what I have.

“The power to keep her safe…”

“… _ **the power.**_ ”

Fria tried to think, but she couldn’t, not properly. There was a hand at her throat, crushing her windpipe and choking off her carotid artery. There wasn’t enough blood going to her brain – some part of her subconscious knew she’d been dead in seconds, assuming her neck didn’t break first.

_Not_

“Your power… belongs to me… my _right_ …”

Fria managed to open her eyes. She didn’t recognize the woman trying to kill her, clad in black and with a patch over one eye. _How odd_. She’d always thought she’d die by Winter’s hand. They’d never broached the topic - not even circuitously - but Fria had understood her situation well enough to realize that they may not have the luxury of letting natural causes take their toll. That Winter Schnee may, should a crisis arise, have to take her life. It would not have been how Fria _wanted_ to die, but spiritually, she was at peace. She’d even allowed herself to entertain a morbid curiosity as to the manner in which Winter would end her.

_Not like_

She tried calling out Winter’s name, but her throat was crushed, and no air passed through it. Her assailant lifted her bodily from her bed, throwing her halfway across the room. Fria felt something in her chest _crack_ as she landed, skidding across the floor.

_Not like this_

“How pathetic,” the woman sneered, stepping around the pool of blood Fria was coughing up. “All that power just _wasting away_.”

The woman kicked Fria, sending her crashing into the shelves. She heard something else breaking, but this time it wasn’t from her body. No, it was the teacups, with which she had shared so many drinks with Winter.

Her vision was blackening. She struggled to focus her eyes, but she could only make out a shard of the teacup, broken in a crude crescent. She grabbed it on instinct, holding it like a dagger, clutched as fiercely as her fingers would allow her. She’d killed with broken glassware before, long, _long_ ago, but the least she could do was die with-

The hand was back at her throat. The last ounces of Fria’s strength left her, and the shard fell from her fingers. The woman pressed her against the wall and lifted her _up_ , until her feet were no longer touching the floor.

“ _Look at me!_ ” the woman was screaming. But Fria didn’t, _couldn’t_. She had to think of… couldn’t _look at_ …

The hand around her neck tightened; her head tilted backwards. Up, _up_ , until she could make out nothing but her own dark form, her image reflected in the mirrored glass above her room. That was where-

_vertebrae cracked_

-Weiss.

_**Weiss Schnee**_.

There was an overwhelming, otherworldly sense of _cold_.

_“She’s my sister. Weiss.”_

“Weiss!”

Weiss Schnee opened her eyes, finding herself staring into the silver of Ruby Rose’s. She was on the floor, gasping for air, with no memory of how she’d gotten there. Myrtenaster lay a few feet away, having fallen from her hand and then been kicked by Ruby in her confusion.

“Are you okay? _Weiss_? Weiss what just happened there?”

And then Weiss felt something enkindle within her, some strength that had nothing to do with Semblances or Dust or the Schnee family name.

She would have cried, had this been a time for tears. But she couldn’t, not now, not knowing what must have happened. Weiss swallowed and met Ruby’s gaze, her hands pushing her up off the cool floor she’d fallen on.

And arose the Winter Maiden.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback of any sort is welcomed; comments are appreciated whenever you find this fic. Your reviews and readership are cherished.
> 
> I’m strongly convinced that there’s a critical clue in Glynda’s Volume 3 exposition: “ _As we understand it now, when a Maiden dies, the one who is in her final thoughts is the first candidate to inherit her power_.”
> 
> It is, we might say, a suspiciously specific detail – ‘ _the person closest to them_ ’ (physically or emotionally) would have worked just as well for the Maiden transfers that we know of. I am choosing to believe that this means that a Maiden will die (let’s be realistic – _be killed_ ), but their last thoughts will not be of their attacker, but of someone they love.
> 
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